In the scorching summer of 1987, young, invincible and hungry for adventure, I left my cloistered life at the University of Sydney to hitchhike to Darwin. I wanted to discover the “real” Australia, that classless utopia of rugged, self-made blokes in the Foster’s ads; the quixotic outback of explorers and mavericks celebrated by Xavier Herbert and Patrick White. Hitchhiking for art was a masculine pursuit, mythologised by Jack Kerouac and the beatniks. I wanted to update their 60s machismo with some brazenly female 80s cool. I would document my 8,000km trip, return to Sydney unscathed, and write a novel. Or so I thought.
My companion, Andrew Peisley, and I hit the highway at Lithgow, armed with a tarp, seven books and a guitar. We’d survive on Peisley’s dole cheque and busk for counter-meals in pubs along the way. We agreed to remain platonic, accept every lift that got us closer to Darwin, and never split up. Four days in, at a Cunnamulla roadhouse, our rules imploded. I was kidnapped by truckies. Four of them, driving two road trains in convoy. They couldn’t fit us both in one truck so they offered to take me in the first and Peisley in the second. I climbed, just as Kerouac would, into the first rig and we drove off. But when Peisley approached the second truck, the driver slammed the door in his face.
For five hours up a desolate stretch of the Simpson known as Death Highway, the truckies faked conversations on their two-way to convince me Peisley was in the second truck. They were drunk and high on ox blood, a trucker amphetamine. They made me drive the road train, force fed me pills, stripped and assaulted me. Gang-rape, perhaps something worse, was on the cards. Through stubbornness, arrogance and a miraculous stroke of luck, I survived. A random driver dropped Peisley at the Augathella turnoff, just when my abductors stopped for a rest. We escaped into the bush, made it to Darwin and had a magnificent adventure. I filed away my kidnapping as a useful character-building exercise and got on with life.
If I had PTSD, I didn’t notice. I didn’t identify as a victim. I didn’t describe the ordeal in detail to others, or cry. When a friend asked if I’d been scared, I insisted, “No, I was furious!” As a gen X-er I discovered feminism in the 80s, when Thatcher and Reagan rejected collectivist civil rights in favour of profit-focused individualism. Women’s lib and bra burners were on the nose. For young, aspirational women like me, there was a palpable sense we had to compete with each other to climb up the pole. We navigated the daily hurdles of sexism alone, proud of our ability to not complain and get things done.
For 30 years I thought I was unscarred, until Alyssa Milano’s groundbreaking 2017 tweet popped on to my feed: “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ … ”
I normally rejected invitations to overshare as narcissistic but this time I felt compelled to reply: “1. the truckies who kidnapped me hitching to darwin 2. the film producer who asked to see my breasts in an audition 3. the man who stalked me in newtown and watched me shower 4. the men who whispered filthy things on the street even when I hid my body 5. the men who have started to look at my teenage daughter the same way – watch out.”
Milano’s hashtag was retweeted 1m times with 12m Facebook reposts in less than two days – with many stories more horrific than mine. With two words, #MeToo created a digital sisterhood. It resurrected the mass activism of the second-wave feminists, reclaiming the collective voice the 80s backlash against “angry feminism” had erased and turbo-charging it across the globe. #MeToo’s 24 million contributors proved the misogyny we’d battled in private was endemic, part of a patriarchal power structure that divided us to remain intact.
In 2019 I drove my daughter to Darwin to retrace my 80s hitchhiking trip, curious if the outback misogyny I’d encountered was still there. We found decency and antipathy in equal measure. At her co-ed primary, my daughter was surrounded by supportive boys, and she resisted my patriarchal critiques as too absolute. She forged her own connection with #MeToo in 2021, when a fellow high schooler, Chanel Contos, triggered a viral campaign against sexual abusers from Sydney’s all-male schools.
#MeToo has weathered inevitable pushback since it began: for being too “politically white”; for not generating tangible change; for waging a “witch-hunt” against “gallant” men; for encouraging victims to speak out when punishment mechanisms are not in place; for making men feel confused, unsafe and fearful.
But #MeToo has also unleashed an evolving, nuanced and crucial conversation, shifting the spotlight from abused to abuser. It has spread across the global south, giving agency and visibility to women in India, Bangladesh, China and South Korea. It has catalysed an overhaul of workplace practices and brought new credibility to the survivors of gendered-violence. It is providing parents of vulnerable boys, targeted by misogynists like Andrew Tate, an alternative path that shows feminism is good for men too. Male allies of #MeToo embody a new, more chivalrous masculinity that holds perpetrators of rape culture to account.
In my own life, #MeToo brought me closer to my male friends, who responded to my Facebook post with concern. It gave me the confidence to document my kidnapping in a book, not as a victim, but as a survivor. It enabled me, emotionally, to finally process my assault, three decades on. And it has armed my daughter and her gen Z peers with the language they’ll need to reconfigure the nexus between feminism, gender and power in a fracturing world.
Anna Broinowski is an author, film-maker and lecturer who researches propaganda and deepfakes at the University of Sydney. Datsun Angel is out now (Hachette, $34.99)
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
